Biosolids are distributed onto hayfields or rangeland similar to the way manure is applied, and like manure, provide nutrients and organic matter to help build healthy productive soils and retain moisture.Metro Vancouver

Growth around biosolids. Nicola Valley residents are worried about their health after biosolids used in the region were tested and found to carry high levels of chemicals and metals.John Werring

OK Ranch research plot: This Ministry of Forests research plot was fertilized once, 13 years ago, on the left hand side using Metro Vancouver’s biosolids. Thirteen years later, you can see the difference in vegetation growth and the soil moisture content.Metro Vancouver

Granby tailings mine — before biosolids
This was one of Metro’s first mine projects, Granby Tailings in Princeton, which used biosolids to re-establish topsoil and vegetation, and eliminated a huge dust problem for Princeton. The BC Lung Association credited this project for greatly improving the air quality in Princeton from the reduced tailings dust. Photo that illustrates use of biosolids (treated human waste) as a fertilizer.Metro Vancouver

Granby tailings mine — after biosolids
This was one of Metro’s first mine projects, Granby Tailings in Princeton, which used biosolids to re-establish topsoil and vegetation, and eliminated a huge dust problem for Princeton. The BC Lung Association credited this project for greatly improving the air quality in Princeton from the reduced tailings dust.Metro Vancouver

A field after biosolids have been distributed.Metro Vancouver

Aldergrove park — before. This is a former gravel pit that was converted to a Metro Vancouver Regional Park using biosolids.Metro Vancouver

Aldergrove park — after. This is a former gravel pit that was converted to a Metro Vancouver Regional Park using biosolids.Metro Vancouver

Sewage sludge beside public road. Nicola Valley residents are worried about their health after biosolids used in the region were tested and found to carry high levels of chemicals and metals.John Werring

Sludge pile on ranch land. Nicola Valley residents are worried about their health after biosolids used in the region were tested and found to carry high levels of chemicals and metals.John Werring

Nicola Valley area residents are worried about their health after biosolids hauled in from Metro Vancouver were found to carry high levels of chemicals and metals.

The tests are the latest development in a long-standing battle by First Nations and other Nicola Valley residents to stop farmers from fertilizing their fields with treated sewage sludge from Metro Vancouver.

They have blockaded roads and rallied at the B.C. legislature, and prompted the province to order a review of the use of the fertilizer in the region, with a report due later this year. But their concerns run counter to scientific evidence and international recommendations that say the sludge is a safe, environmentally sound fertilizer.

Biosolids are spread on agricultural land across Canada and in countries all over the world — including the U.S. and European states — and their use is expected to rise in B.C. and across Canada, according to Metro Vancouver.

John Werring, a science adviser at the David Suzuki Foundation, travelled in July to grasslands outside Logan Lake — about 50 kilometres north of Merritt — and sampled piles of biosolids he said were in an area accessible to cattle.

Werring scooped material from different areas of the piles, then had the samples tested at a Burnaby laboratory. That revealed about a dozen toxins at levels that exceeded the limits for contaminated sites under B.C. regulations.

What the laboratory found in the samples was high levels of cadmium, copper, mercury, molybdenum, selenium, sodium ion, tin, zinc, dichlorophenols, methylphenols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and phthalates.

“It makes absolutely no sense for us to be (spreading) that on food-producing land,” Werring said. That is consistent with the David Suzuki Foundation’s policy on biosolids, he said.

“It gets into the roots, and then it’s taken into the vegetation. Then along comes a grazing cow that eats the vegetation and now it’s in the cow. And then you slaughter the cow and you put it on the shelf for people to eat.”

Staff at the Ministry of Environment received Werring’s findings, but said they need more information on the sampling before they can review, interpret and comment on the results, according to a ministry statement.

But the appearance of elements and compounds like those Werring found are not unexpected, according to the ministry. Some likely came from personal care products and vitamins. Others are found in pipes or heating and cooling systems. Some degrade while others are persistent and bioaccumulate.

Trace elements found in biosolids are often in higher concentration than in typical soils, according to a United Nations Environment Program report titled Biosolids Management: An Environmentally Sound Approach for Managing Sewage Treatment Plant Sludge. But most are immobile and tend to concentrate only to the depth they are applied, according to the report.

Lynda McCarthy, a professor at the Ryerson University’s Department of Chemistry and Biology, said that applying biosolids to land at provincially-regulated rates “appears to be an environmentally sustainable option” for supplying farmers with nutrients and processing human waste.

McCarthy has tested biosolids as agricultural fertilizer at her Ryerson lab for about a decade. She said they’ve found no evidence of effects on bugs, aquatic organisms, or plants like corn, canola and soybean “at even the most sensitive part of the life cycle.

“This includes germination rates, fruit production, and overall biomass for plants, and behaviour, growth, and reproduction for animals.”

Werring took his samples from Rey Creek Ranch, where Garthwaite family members have grazed cattle for three generations. The ranch is a cow-calf operation, meaning that the Garthwaites have a permanent herd of cows that give birth in spring to calves that are sold in fall.

Scott Garthwaite said biosolids have been used at the ranch as a free alternative to chemical fertilizer for about two decades. Nutrients in the biosolids are released over time and each application lasts about five years, Garthwaite said. Cattle are fenced away from the biosolids for a prescribed period of time, he said, adding that cattle footprints Werring said he saw in the piles he tested may have came from a cow that escaped its pasture. When farmers or ranchers like the Garthwaites want to apply biosolids to their land, they need to bring in a third party agrologist to help come up with a plan.

“It’s not just a blanket ‘throw the biosolids out there,’ it’s pretty scientific, and based on what’s (already) in the soil,” Garthwaite said

Tony Sperling, the president of Sperling Hansen Associates, said his company handled the biosolids that Werring tested.

“There’s a fairly proactive process in place to make sure that the things we’re doing are not doing any harm. We also have a fairly rigorous monitoring program in the creeks around the property to make sure that we’re not releasing any unsuitable water or any run-off that would be toxic,” he said.

Sperling said he was discouraged that “something that is actually really good for the environment” has drawn public concern.

“What’s going to happen is, if we’re not allowed to use biosolids, we’re going to have to start using chemical fertilizer,” Sperling said, “At the end of the day you’re going to have higher nitrogen and phosphorous run-off in order to maintain the same productivity.”

About 20 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s biosolids are mixed with wood chips and sand and spread on local lands, said Laurie Ford, the program manager for Metro’s biosolids management program.

The remainder of the 50,000 tonnes produced each year in the region is hauled by truck, mostly to areas that have low levels of nutrients and organic matter in the soil, she said.

“That tends to be in the southwestern interior of B.C. — arid areas that don’t get a lot of rain,” Ford said.

Not all biosolids end up on farmland, and in Metro Vancouver, none does, Ford said, explaining that regional soils have plenty of nutrients already and food waste compost is readily available.

About 9,000 loads of biosolids — “not quite every load, but virtually every load” — are tested each year before being trucked out of the region, she said. Before they can be used, the lab results must be checked. Problem loads are rare enough that sometimes there are years when not a single load is held back, she said.

That may not be enough to assuage the concerns of Aaron Sam, the chief of the Lower Nicola Indian Band. Sam said community members were not consulted before Metro Vancouver hauled in its biosolids and he feared toxins in them could bioaccumulate in the food chain.

“We’re concerned about our community members’ health,” Sam said, adding that they rely on clean water and clean land and still fish for food and eat plants from the area.

“The independent tests that we’ve just done show there’s risk. We want the province to take that risk seriously. When it comes to our community members’ health, we have to take all the necessary precautions.”

Sam said he does not want to see biosolids hauled into the region from Metro Vancouver any longer.

First Nation chiefs from the Nicola Valley protested biosolids on the lawn of the B.C. legislature in May, and threatened to continue blockading the sludge.

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Metro sewage as fertilizer has Nicola Valley up in arms

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